 |
||
 EPISODE REVIEWS | ||
 | The
Assignment Airdate:
Week of October 28th, 1996
Written
by: David Weddle & Bradley Thompson (teleplay); David R. Long
& Robert Lederman (story)
Directed
by: Allan Kroeker
Brief Summary:
Keiko O'Brien returns to DS9 from a visit to the fire caves of
Bajor possessed by an alien force who requires Miles to do her
bidding or face the death of his wife.
Oh boy,
another alien possession on Star Trek. How original... I
sarcastically thought when I saw the preview last week. The
Original Series, the Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and
Voyager all have had alien possession stories, probably totalling
at about two or three dozen. The evil alien takes over one of the
hero's bodies, threatens everyone, proclaims some foul plan, and
is foiled at the last moment. Same old, same old.
But The
Assignment surprised me. Yes, it was an alien possession
story. Yes, there were the regular threats. Yes, there was a last
moment foiling of the alien's foul plans. But the story was not
really about the possession. The real story was about how far
Miles O'Brien was willing to go to save his wife's life and
whether or not he was willing to cross certain boundries. And,
unlike, most of those possession stories, it worked.
O'Brien is by far
one of the more interesting characters on DS9. Half of it comes
from Colm Meaney's acting and the other half comes from the
writers on staff at Paramount. O'Brien was a logical choice for
the story to revolve around. A family man, with a wife and a
child, he has a lot to lose from his decision. It is a difficult
decision to make. Which is more important: his duty or his
family? Not an easy choice, especially when that duty includes
the protection of the station and the wormhole.
Miles does try to
get out of the dilemma on several occassions. All of them fail.
He has no way to prevent want the alien wants him to do. When he
tries to talk to Sisko and Odo about the matter, the alien tosses
Keiko's body from the second floor of the Promenade to stop him.
At one point, she even threatens to hurt little Molly if Miles
doesn't get the task done. It is executed in a way that even the
viewer can't figure a way out for him. The computer helps him
make his decision when it reports that every way to immobilize
Keiko's body would take too long.
The alien itself
and the plan to destroy the wormhole aliens was really a nice
touch to the show. The writers could have opted to go with a
species that we've never seen or will see again and made them the
villains. Instead, they chose to broaden the Bajoran mythology
aspect of the show, which is much mor interesting. We learned
that the wraiths were a group of aliens cast out of
the wormhole and plunged into the fire caves of Bajor. I do hope
that this aspect of the Prophets will be followed up in some
future episode, but I doubt it.
One of the high
points for me was the way O'Brien was so stressed about the
possession and what the wraith was making him do that he
completely missed why she was making him do it. The fact that Rom
was the one who spotted it was a nice little twist, which gives
me reason to think that he is not the idiot he has been portrayed
to be in the past.
Let's quickly
talk about the wraith's plan. The ablility to destroy the aliens
of the wormhole seemed a little to simple for me. Couldn't a ship
from the Dominion or another race just do the same thing. If Rom
could figure it out, couldn't others. If it is touched upon again
in the future, then I'll be pleased. Otherwise, I thought there
was a little weakness to that part.
In the end,
though, we knew that O'Brien would resist the wraith's plan, even
if it meant the death of his wife. By aiming the blast at the
shuttlecraft in the hope that his wife would survive the strike
was somewhat predictable, but did not hurt the story. It may have
even added to it in that his final choice was duty to the job of
protection.
I think the main
reason that this episode worked so well was based on the acting
of Colm Meaney and Rosalind Chao. While we've come to expect this
from Meaney, Chao was the real surprise. I suppose that it comes
from the fact that we don't see her get a real chance to test her
acting skills on the show. She is usually just Miles' wife, more
of a prop for O'Brien in those episodes. Here she is
given some real duties to perform. The cold and sadistic side was
fun to watch, because all we are used to seeing is simple
emotions like worry or happiness. I understand that she (along
with Jake, Rom, and Garak) will be appearing much more this
season and I am pleased to see that.
As for the
subplot involving Rom, I was also very pleased with it. Usually,
the subplot runs parallel to the story, touching on common
themes, but this time it was also interweaved into it. Rom has
been getting much more screen time over the last few seasons,
some of it working well and some of it hasn't. This time it is
the former. Rom is becoming less of an idiot, proving that it was
just under Quark's shadow that he acted that way. He is shown to
be a hard worker and quite knowledgable about engineering. I
think it the right way to portray him, so I will also be looking
forward to more this season from him (including the upcoming Risa
episode).
All-in-all, the
episode clicked right for me. There were some parts I could have
done without, like how simple it is to kill the wormhole aliens,
but overall a good effort by the cast and crew.
Some minor points
of interest:
- The opening
scene with Julian and Miles was purely filler, but it was still
fun to watch. These two characters have been a great match for
each other, so most scenes they do together are fun to watch. I
especially liked Molly's you're in trouble comment to
her father over the dead Bonsai plants. The kid is usually not
very interesting to watch most of the time, but it worked well
this time.
- Another high
point for me was the scenes with Rom trying to keep the system
changes a secret from the rest of the crew. The comment that it
took Odo forty minutes to get him to admit his name was
priceless, especially concerning the earlier scene.
- O'Brien knocks
out Odo with a single punch, rendering him unconscious long
enough to get to the shuttlecraft. Miles is pretty lucky that Odo
no longer has his shapeshifting skills. Otherwise, this episode
might have been a little shorter... :) But it is good to see that
they are still examining that aspect of Odo, no matter how
subtle.
- I didn't quite
understand why the wraith gave O'Brien a time limit. Was there a
limit on how long the wraith could hold possession of Keiko's
body or was it just to force O'Brien to work faster on the
project and give him less time to think up a way out of it?
Either way, it helped add some suspense to the second half of the
show.
To sum it all up:
Writing:
Interesting twist on the usual Trek possession story. I am not
familiar with these writers, but they did a pretty good job on
the episode.
Acting: Excellent
work by Colm Meaney (as usual) and Rosalind Chao (surprisingly).
A little praise should go to Max Grodenchek as well for adding a
little more depth to Rom's character.
Directing:
Another unfamiliar name to me, but an adequate job of putting the
emotions of the story to the camera.
Conclusion: I was
impressed. I went in with low expectations and came out of it
entertained. For once, the subplot and main plot actaully served
a common purpose. An interesting story that didn't fall into the
usual pitfalls of possession stories. Kudos to the staff of DS9.
Rating: 8.2
Next Week: The
greatest threat in Star Trek history is back... Tribbles!!!
Copyright 1996,
Bill Synnamon. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced,
edited, or used for any commericial reason without my permission.
Rom:
Culpable deniability. I understand. Don't worry about me,
Chief. My lips
are sealed. Nobody will get anything out of me. Not even my
name.
O'Brien:
Rom, everybody on the station knows your name.
Rom:
Right... but I won't confirm it!
Send Your
Comments on This Episode, Click
Here!
| |
|
|
||
|
NAVIGATION PADD | ||
| ||